


Berceuse

by teethandstars



Category: Picnic at Hanging Rock (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 14:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17045195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teethandstars/pseuds/teethandstars
Summary: Three times three girls lie down together.





	Berceuse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecarlysutra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/gifts).



_MIRANDA_  


It was a hot and sticky and Mademoiselle dismissed the class early. Ladies are supposed to glisten, not sweat like horses, but that had not stopped all their skin from beading, collars soaking through in the stillness. They were allowed to return to their rooms or to the library or girls’ parlor; they were not to go outside.

Miranda trailed after Irma and Marion into their shared room, where they all relieved themselves of their dresses. They stood in their chemises and took turns fanning each other with the most recent edition of the ridiculous magazine of fashion plates Irma received thrice annually. The windows were flung open to tempt a nonexistent cross-breeze.

Miranda felt such a bone-deep longing to be at her family’s ranch, on the back of her favorite mare, letting the air tangle her hair as she rode. She closed her eyes and could almost remember the sensation of freedom.  


Hands gathered her hair away from her neck and shoulders, a loose bun forming in someone’s gentle fingers. Irma’s violet-scented eau de toilette filled her nose.  


“There now,” Irma said. “It’s not so terribly warm as that, Miranda.”  


And Miranda realized she had been crying, just a little, her eyes still shut firmly. She felt Marion move to stand behind her, and then Marion’s breath blowing on the nape of her neck, a breath of fresh air in the heavy stillness of the room.  


Miranda stood still for long moment. It felt as though they were all three frozen—or perhaps petrified in place, poured out into this tableau and hardened over time. But it could have only been a moment they stood there. The Tiffany clock that ticked out seconds had not even chimed again before Miranda shifted away.  


“I’m so very tired.” Miranda said. “Come and lie down with me?”  


Irma and Marion did.  


  


  


_MARION_  


The rainy season came as it always did. The wet and the damp irritated Irma and made Miranda even more restless and listless than usual, but Marion rarely felt aggrieved by rain.  


Inside the walls of Appleyard, the younger girls took to recreation in the calisthenics room while the older girls gravitated towards the girls’ parlor or their own rooms. Marion was laying low in the room where they took art, attempting to perfect her pastel work in a still life of a vase filled with Epacris impressa. The flowers would likely not last the night without wilting and Marion wanted to capture them as they were.  


The day had been grating.  


Marion was all that an accomplished young lady ought to be. She remembered histories and topographies. She spoke the fashionable languages and understood the classical languages. She played the piano, perhaps not inspiredly but at least proficiently. Her gait was graceful, her manners polished, her words considered.  


And still, so many of the other Appleyard girls quietly, or even unconsciously, reviled her for her dark skin, her dark eyes, her dark mother.  


The flowers were turning out nicely. Marion had chosen the flower for its deep pinks and delicate curves—and because it gave Miranda and Irma and her an excuse to wander, just barely off of the college grounds, for a precious half hour to collect the wild-growing flowers. Appleyard College’s rose garden was loveliness itself bounded by hedgerows, but Marion had wanted her illustration to be more real than picturesque. Mrs. Valange had been delighted by Marion’s vision and agreed to their foray.  


And Miranda had lit up from within by being outdoors, unescorted and out of sight of the neat lawn and straight lines of the college, even for those brief minutes.  


As if summoned by Marion’s thoughts, Miranda appeared in the doorway. “Marion,” she said, “Why don’t you come sit with Irma and me? We’re going to watch the rain in the solarium.”  


The solarium was not, strictly speaking, an area of the college that the girls were encouraged to be in. It was well-known that Mrs. Appleyard enjoyed spending her leisure time in there. Since Mrs. Appleyard’s leisure time was short and seldom, girls were discouraged from remaining overly long in the room Mrs. Appleyard might find a few minutes to visit. Not that Miranda, who regarded Mrs. Appleyard as something akin to a Biblical adversary, or Irma, who was a Rothschild and therefore did not regard Mrs. Appleyard in any fashion whatsoever, cared.  


“I want to finish this before the bouquet wilts.”  


Miranda came to lean against the desk next to Marion, her straight brows furrowed as she examined the flowers they had so happily plucked that morning.  


“Poor things. They must be half-gone already.” Miranda sighed then. “I wish we had been allowed to sketch them in situ; they could have lived and died without ever being uprooted.”  


Marion did not reply and instead added another stroke of deepest red. But she did pack away her pastels afterwards before walking arm in arm with Miranda to the solarium.  


Irma was there, presumably still where Miranda had left her, perched on the chaise and gazing at the storm battering against the windows. Her hair was no longer in the elegant twist she had formed it into that morning, and the little light filtering through the rain made her skin glow faintly blue. She rose when they entered, began to come over to them, and then seemed to reconsider. She lowered herself onto the plush carpet in the middle of the room and reclined back onto her elbows and quirked an eyebrow—nearly an embossed invitation to join her on the floor.  


“I do so hate the wet,” Irma stated. “But I suppose there is a certain charm in the noise. A strange sort of music.”  


Miranda nearly threw herself on the floor. “I would mind it less if we were not so confined by it.”  


Irma lay back fully, turning into Miranda’s flung wide arms. Marion watched them for a moment, her dearest friends splayed on the ground like children, beckoning her to come and be apart of their drowsy embrace.  


Irma was right. The rain did have a pleasant cadence, after a fashion. Marion dropped to her knees and joined them.  


  


  


_IRMA_  


It was over-bright. Irma could only see shapes by squinting, which surely did nothing for her features. The brightness seemed to burn red against her eyelids. She would probably freckle disgustingly in the sun, but it was worth it.

Being near Miranda and Marion was always worth any and all manner of unpleasantness.  


It wasn’t unpleasant at all, though. Not truly: Irma felt as though Hanging Rock had been waiting aeons for them, only them, to come and lie down, to just close their eyes and dream...   



End file.
